<b_jonas> slashlearn block device/Block devices are a concession made in Unix to make raw hard disks and magnetic tape have a similar interface to regular files and terminals. Since magnetic tapes can\'t write individual bytes, only entire blocks, the interface isn\'t exactly the same, thus the dreaded dd obs= option was born.

line="$(cat /hackenv/tmp/spline)"; len="$(wc -l /hackenv/tmp/spout | awk '{print $1}')"; echo -n "$line/$len:"; sed -n "${line}p" /hackenv/tmp/spout; echo "$((line+1))" > /hackenv/tmp/spline